The Lex Specialis Regime Pertinent to Palestinian Refugees

Abstract The passage of over seven decades, coupled by consistent practice of States, has triggered the emergence of a distinct international legal regime for Palestinian refugees. Unlike the majority of contemporary refugees, Palestinians ‘refugeehood’ would not end pursuant to the acquisition of other citizenship(s) or by gaining protection akin to citizens in host States. Given their distinctive situation, individuals in this group, whose refugee status is intertwined to that of a prolonged denial of the right to self-determination, continue to be entitled to the right of return in their homeland in pre-1948 Palestine, namely either the State of Israel or the new State of Palestine within the 1967-occupied territory, depending on the original place of habitual residence of each individual or his/her ascendants before flight. In short, international law has generated a lex specialis regime for Palestinian refugees, which provides either equal, or heightened, protection and is in no means inferior, to other refugees.